the rix mix

The librarian asked me how I liked Don Winslow's latest crime novel, The Dawn Patrol, which takes place in & around San Diego surfer culture. I said it was enjoyable but wasn't as good as an earlier book I'd read, The Death & Life of Bobby Z. She said, well, sometimes novelists just go on automatic after they've written a few books. Her remark annoyed me a little; I hadn't implied anything that critical of Don Winslow, who I would say is underrated, on the basis of the only two novels of his I have read, both of which had protagonists interesting enough to live on in their own crime novel series if Winslow wanted to take them that route.

There are popular P.I.s like Spenser that aren't all that interesting to me as characters, but Robert B. Parker surrounds his man with sociopath "friends" & lets them kill other bad guys without fear of being arrested & charged with murder. I prefer detective types that worry about making messes & then needing to clean up the messes they make. Bobby Z is a nonstop action adventure about a loser who thinks he's saving his own ass by briefly impersonating a legendary drug dealer, Bobby Z, then finds out he has to become as smart & resourceful as the real Bobby Z. The Dawn Patrol had a little too much endless sea mysticism for my taste, although the characters & local detail are excellent. I'm never sure how much weight I ought to be giving to the plot.

I find this particular middle-aged librarian attractive. No doubt she's on the city pension plan, you can tell she's been at it for years, she's got the routines & can switch the bossiness on & off, But I am not attractive. & librarians generally are not as interesting as one hopes of people who work around books all day. They are usually cataloguers & clerks by temperament. Yet, they don't seem to be neat people, personally. They depend on the system.

Labels: Elizabeth NJ, what I'm reading